Trump irked by Russia oil deal
US leader insists allies must raise contributions to Nato
IN A COMBATIVE start to his Nato visit, President Donald Trump asserted yesterday that a pipeline project has made Germany “totally controlled” by and “captive to Russia”, and blasted allies’ defence spending, opening what was expected to be a fraught summit with a list of grievances involving America’s allies.
Trump, in a testy exchange with Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, took issue with the US protecting Germany as it strikes deals with Russia.
“I have to say, I think it’s very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia, where we’re supposed to be guarding against Russia,” Trump said at breakfast with Stoltenberg. “We’re supposed to protect you against Russia, but they’re paying billions of dollars to Russia and I think that’s very inappropriate.”
The president appeared to be referring to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would bring gas from Russia to Germany’s north-eastern Baltic coast, bypassing eastern European nations like Poland and Ukraine, and doubling the amount of gas Russia can send directly to Germany. The vast undersea pipeline is opposed by the US and some other EU members, who warn it could give Moscow greater leverage over western Europe.
Trump repeatedly described Germany as “captive to Russia”, and urged Nato to look into the issue.
German chancellor Angela Merkel pushed back as she arrived at Nato headquarters for the summit shortly before the president, insisting that Germany makes its own decisions.
“I’ve experienced myself a part of Germany controlled by the Soviet Union, and I’m very happy today that we are united in freedom as the Federal Republic of Germany, and can thus say that we can determine our own policies and make our own decisions, and that’s very good,” she said.
In the back-and-forth, Stoltenberg stressed that Nato members have been able to work together despite their differences.
“I think that two world wars and the Cold War taught us that we are stronger together than apart,” he told the president, trying to calm tensions.
Trump later tweeted a video of the exchange.
The criticism was an unusual one coming from Trump, who has appeared eager to cosy up to Putin and dismissed the US intelligence community’s assessment that Russia tried to undermine Western democracy by meddling in the 2016 US presidential election to help Trump win. During the campaign, Trump often resorted to the tactic of falsely accusing his opponents of things he had been criticised for doing.
In the US, reaction was mixed. Senator Angus King, I-Maine, told CNN yesterday that Trump’s complaining about Nato was “like turning a family squabble into divorce proceedings”. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced hours after the tit-for-tat over Germany that Trump would later meet with Merkel, as well as with French President Emmanuel Macron. Journalists would not be allowed to cover either meeting, she said.
Trump is expected to continue hammering jittery Nato allies about their military spending during the summit, which comes amid increasingly frayed relations between the “America first” president and the US’s closest traditional allies.
“The US is paying far too much and other countries are not paying enough, especially some. So we’re going to have a meeting on that,” Trump said as he arrived at the breakfast, describing the situation as “disproportionate and not fair to the taxpayers of the US, and we’re going to make it fair”.
“They will spend more,” he later predicted. “I have great confidence they’ll be spending more.”
Trump has been pushing Nato members to reach their agreed-to target of spending 2% of their gross domestic product on national defence by 2024, and has accused those who don’t of freeloading off the US.
Nato estimates 15 members, or just over half, will meet the benchmark by 2024, based on current trends.
Brussels is the first leg of a week-long European tour that will include stops in London and Scotland, as well as a highly anticipated meeting next week with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Trump predicted as he departed Washington that the “easiest” leg of the journey would be the sit-down with Putin – a comment that did little to reassure allies fretting over his potential embrace of a Russian leader they regard as troublesome. – AP